Tag: Wycombe Wanderers

In the end, it was all a step too far. AFC Wimbledon were outdone last night by a Wycombe side that was that little bit fitter, taller and better organised than they were. No-one can have any complaints about the result. To say that this was the only thing that mattered last night, however, would be to misinterpret the significance of the evening. This was the evening that Wimbledon re-entered the national stage, and the club that an FA committee had once famously said were not in “the wider interests of football” pulled it off brilliantly. There were times yesterday when it looked as if the match wouldn’t take place at all. Pouring rain across the whole of the south of England coupled with a failure to cover the pitch meant that it was touch and go whether the pitch would be playable or not. However, volunteers at their Kingsmeadow stadium worked throughout the day to ensure that the pitch was in the best possible condition to play. Over 4,500 tickets had been sold for this match and the television cameras were there. Nothing was going to get in the way of this match going ahead. It was, indeed, something of a strange sight to see the mobile broadcasting unit of Setanta Sports parked up behind the Kingston Road goal. Wimbledon play at a level that isn’t televised very...

As I hurtle unstoppably towards my late thirties, I tend to find that there is less and less to look forward to. Birthdays long ago became a cause for reflection and with an ever increasing desire to be able to say, “Whoaah! No more of these! Can’t we just stop right where we are?”. Without children of my own, Christmas Day usually finds me slightly hungover and grumpy, wanting a little nap on the sofa rather than any presents. I have been largely stripped of my child-like wonder. I’m becoming as much of a grumpy old man as the anti-hero of the song “Gertcha”, by Chas & Dave, to whom every single thing that seems to happen seems to be an affront. But. If there is one weekend of the year that brings out the gurgling eight year old in me, it’s this weekend. The weekend of the First Round Proper of the FA Cup. Better still, I have a ticket for the match of the round, as AFC Wimbledon take on Wycombe Wanderers on Monday night, before the ruthless gaze of Setanta Sports’ live cameras. I haven’t looked forward to a match this much in I don’t know how long. I’ve even booked a day and a half of work to buffer it properly. There is an element of living vicariously about this. St Albans City have made...

Those of us that spend the majority of our time watching lower league or non-league football have no involvement in the awful process and uniquely undignified process of buying tickets. Outside of the Premier League, there are very few all-ticket matches. Some clubs don’t allow you to pay on the turnstile on the day, but getting advance tickets for a match involving, say, Brighton & Hove Albion is a fairly leisurely activity. If you phone the ticket hotline, it will more often than not be answered with an almost incredulous “Hello?”, as if the person answering the call was at best not in the slightest expecting the phone to ring or, at worst, sitting there wondering what that strange looking adding machine with a handle in front of them actually was. The ticketing arrangements for the FA Cup First Round match between AFC Wimbledon and Wycombe Wanderers to be played a week on Monday were made public on Wednesday. It is an inherent problem for the FA Cup. With the rounds of the competition being played out every two weeks since the middle of August, clubs that aren’t used to having to sell so many tickets at such short notice are thrown in at the deep end. Wimbledon have had all-ticket matches before (for example, their FA Trophy match against Torquay United last season), but with this match receiving...